


The Numbness that Came

by reader2020



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Children, F/M, Post-Reynolds Pamphlet, The Reynolds Pamphlet, poor eliza, stupid Hamilton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:47:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26696230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reader2020/pseuds/reader2020
Summary: “The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart and all they can do is stare blankly.”How Eliza reacted when he broke her heart.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler
Comments: 14
Kudos: 25





	1. Chapter 1

“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly”

It’s funny how quickly your life can be turned upside down. 

One moment everything is fine, the next, it’s not. 

Eliza Hamilton stood motionless, in the middle of her favourite coffee shop in New York, her husbands face glaring at her from every tv screen. 

He had an affair. 

And told the whole world before her.

Absentmindedly she fiddles with her wedding ring, like she always did when she was nervous. Suddenly she wonders if she should even be wearing it anymore. Her marriage clearly doesn’t matter.

Blankly, she stares again at the tv above the table in the corner, trying to pretend that the barista taking her order hadn’t recognised her. 

She tries to focus on her husbands face, desperately looking for any sign that this was a huge joke. Any second, she tells herself, he’s going to start laughing and boast about how she fell for his prank.

He continues recounting his month long affair in extreme detail.

Eliza swears that she stops breathing.

All her emotions have left her, instead leaving a void. She doesn’t feel anger, or sadness, or even shame. Truly, she feels empty. The role of scorned wife was not one she was expecting to have to play, she suddenly feels out of her depth.

The barista slowly pushes her drink towards her, pity apparent in his eyes. Forcing a small smile, she takes the warm cup from his hands, trying to ignore his sad expression.  
She walks silently out the door and, without thinking, allows her legs to carry her back to the house.

She pushes the obnoxiously red front door open with much more pressure than was necessary, desperately blocking out any thoughts of her husband. Everywhere she looks he was there, his shoes by the door, his coat on the hanger. A hastily written note to her when he left before dawn yesterday morning. He always worked far too hard.

Eliza had never liked being in the house alone, it seemed far too empty and quiet without the children. She supposes that’s why they had so many to begin with, the presence of constant noise calms them both.  
The morning light shines gently through the windows, ironically illuminating the family picture that stood, pride of place on the mantelpiece. 

She turns it round the other way to stop it taunting her. 

Without thinking, she turns on the tv to soften the heavy silence that was ringing in her ears. Her husbands face once again staring back at her, deep brown eyes piercing her soul.  
She switches it off straight away. 

Frantically trying to distract herself, Eliza resorts to staring at the pale walls, scanning her eyes briefly over the collage of photos that hang there, a reminder of their family. Her eyes linger on a photo of John when he was a baby, her heart filling with sadness. The pregnancy test that had been hastily stuffed in her purse this morning is etched in her mind. She was going to take it while he was at work and, if all went to plan, surprise him with the news once the kids were all in bed. 

He has ruined that plan completely.   
Below the numbness, she hates him more.

She soon gets agitated, and realises that she needs to distract herself. So she takes to tidying the entire house, top to bottom. She had wanted to do it for months, but had never found the time between work, the kids sports matches and music concerts, and the many state dinners she was expected to attend as the treasury secretary’s wife. It was in desperate need of a clean, four children create a lot of mess. 

She couldn’t allow her life to stop because of him, she had already done that far too many times.

The cleaning is surprisingly therapeutic, it allows her mind to focus on something other than her husband of nearly 20 years affair. Resent beings to grow. Concentrating on removing the various stains on the carpet that had appeared over the years from all 5 of the children has never seemed so appealing. 

After the house was cleaner than it had ever been, Eliza sunk into the sofa, exhausted. Momentarily, she forgets the events of the morning, only releasing when she switches on her phone. She grimaces at the sheer amount of messages she has received.

Silently, she reads through her sisters angry discussion about what they were going to do when they laid eyes on “that disgusting man”. She reads through the emails from various news channels, all desperate to hear what she had to say about the affair. She reads through the well wishes from people she hadn’t talked to in years, but she cant bear to open the texts from her parents. She really didn’t need to hear “we warned you about him” right now.

Shutting her eyes, she sighs deeply and walks towards her purse. She needs to know if she could drink the unopened bottle of wine in the fridge before the kids came home, to take the edge off the pain.

Walking through the house and into the bathroom, she still feels numb.

This numbness continues as she sets down the test, sliding her back down the cool bathroom tiles. And so begins the longest 2 minutes of her life.

And then, for the second time that day, Eliza Hamilton’s world stops.

This time, she’s staring at the word “Pregnant”

This has to be some kind of sick joke.

And as if she needed more convincing that the world hated her, she hears her husband open the front door.

She doesn’t make a noise when he calls her name.

Still staying silent, she hears his heavy footsteps grow louder and louder as he walks up the stairs.

“Liza?” He calls, the strain evident in his voice. He must have seen her shoes by the door. 

“Eliza it’s me.” He shouts again, his voice sounding more desperate.

“I know your home Bets.” He sounded nearly hysterical now, Eliza thought. She was almost enjoying this. 

“Eliz- why are you in here?” He turns the corner and sees her sat on the bathroom floor, back pressed against the wall helplessly.

She chuckles slightly, the sound harsh against her ears. 

“What gives you the right to ask?” She asks, voice steady and cold, eyes hard against his own. 

The colour vanishes from his face. She laughs again.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”   
He looks down at the floor, suddenly very interested with the pattern of the tiles.   
“You seriously thought that after you told the entire world about your affair I wouldn’t know?” She could feel the anger rising in her for the first time.  
“Fuck you Alex.”   
She stands up and pushes past him to get out of the room, knowing that she won’t be able to contain her anger much longer with him so close. He stares at her, mouth moving wordlessly because for the first time in his life, he cannot find the words to say anything.

And then she realises she had left the pregnancy test on the counter. 

Whipping her head back around, she sees tears flowing slowly down his face. 

“You’re-?” He looks at her, eyes full of hope, and she almost breaks She wants nothing more than to sink into his arms, and allow herself to be lost in them, thoughts full of their new little one. 

Instead, she simply nods her head. 

“I had an idea a few days ago, I was going to surprise you tonight.” Her tone ice cold. He lets out a pathetic sob.

“You’ll sleep in your office.” She decides as watches his tears pour down his face. “I want us to act as normal around the children. They shouldn’t suffer because you couldn’t use an ounce of self control.” 

“What about...” he gestures aimlessly at her stomach. 

“I haven’t made up my mind yet.” She tells him, honestly. She had never been anything but overjoyed at a pregnancy before. “I’ll tell you when I do.” 

Without sparing him another glance, she walks away.

That’s how Eliza reacted when her husband broke her heart.


	2. Melting the ice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few people wanted another chapter, so here it is!!!

Throughout your life, people will always say that pain lessens with time. Give it time, they say, pity etched in their eyes, it will all be better with time.

Eliza would say that isn’t true. 

The pain of the scandal never seems to become lighter, it is always nagging at the back of her mind. 

Affair. Affair. Affair. 

It’s like a pounding, engulfing her every thought. It controls her, and she wishes it wouldn’t. She wishes it would all go away, and struggles to believe she will ever be happy again.

Shaking her head gently, she attempts to concentrate on making dinner. The children need to be fed, they need some sense of normalcy. She repeats this everyday like a mantra, it feels as if she’ll crumble without it. They are truly her rock, more than they’ll ever know. Perhaps one day she’ll tell them. 

The sound of his footsteps upstairs cause Eliza to seize up, and she says a silent prayer that he doesn’t come down. 4 months after the news broke and they still haven’t had a full conversation just the two of them.  
They act as normal as possible in front of the children, even though she knows the older ones see right through them. She doubts her guilt about that will ever fade.

The only other time they have any interaction is at her doctors appointments. He insists on attending every one, despite this being their 5 child. It gives him hope, Eliza assumes, hope that someday they won’t have to pretend anymore. 

She’s not sure if she’s capable of that.

Eliza would say that the first weeks after the pamphlet were strangely the easiest. 

They flew by in a storm of chaos, where she was stood in the centre, motionless. She was nothing but numb. In her head, she thinks of it as the eye of a hurricane, a moment of calm before the world caves in. 

She felt like the bystander to people’s anger, not yet feeling the full force. The days were filled with visitors, the children, avoiding anyone who works for the press. Others were angry for her, and confused about why she seemed so calm. Eliza supposed that she was so busy experiencing her whole entire existence being uprooted, she forgot to feel. 

That came later. 

It happened on the first day the papers and the news channels stopped talking about her. A new, more exciting, headline appeared, and everyone seemed to forget about her husband hanging their dirty laundry for all to see. It seemed that the whole world had moved on, but her life still remained in tatters. 

The pain hit Eliza like a tonne of bricks. 

Her days were then spent either crying, or trying to cover up her hysterics from the children. Being in the same room as him was an impossible task, and she couldn’t chug a glass of wine to ease it. 

Phone calls to Angelica became a daily occurrence, she would never have survived without the solace her sister provided. Eliza buried herself into caring for the children as a welcome distraction, taking them on outings most weekends. The pain was almost unbearable, but she knew she had to be strong. 

If nothing else, she had to be strong.

So she powered through, ignoring the ache that remained, a constant reminder of the state of her life. 

With that strength, the crushing pain eased ever so slightly, so subtle that she didn’t notice. It still knocked the wind out of her, and she still muffled sobs into her pillow, but she slowly began to heal. 

Despite what she thinks, pain does become easier with time. 

The process is slow and long, the developments so small that they went unnoticed.

First, eye contact with him became normal again. Eliza could bear to look at him whilst he was talking at dinner, and on occasion, mutter a comment in response. He pretended not to notice, but hope sprouted inside him whenever it happened.

The next sign of progress was their first conversation alone. It was short, he simply wanted to know what time the children were leaving for their grandparents house. It took her a moment to respond, but she forced the words out. He nodded and strained a smile, leaving the room swiftly. The weight felt slightly lighter afterwards. 

After that, their conversations gradually became longer. They would chat about dinner, his work, the new baby. It was the first real sign of normalcy. 

One day, out of nowhere, he reaches across and places his hand gently on her arm. Instantly Eliza freezes, his skin burning hers. It surprises her, but she makes no effort to move away. After a moment, she relaxes into him, and her icy defence begins to melt. 

It gets easier with time. 

The biggest leap of progress she makes out of the blue. It was late one night, and he came into the kitchen whilst she was locking up before bed. She smiles gently at him, and thinks distantly that his hair looks cute when it’s messy. He smiles back, brushing past her to grab a drink.  
“Come to bed with me?” She blurts, unaware the idea had even made itself into her head. She squeezes her eyes shut as the question is met with silence.   
“Are you sure?” He whispers, turning his head slowly to peer at her.  
She nods her head quickly, he follows her up the stairs with no complaint. 

When she wakes up early the next morning, his body warm next to hers, Eliza supposes that it does eventually get easier. 

A month later, he kisses her.

Surprisingly, she doesn’t freak out and panic. She kisses him back slowly, trying to work out if it’s truly real. He grins into her lips, and she kisses harder. 

The sun breaks through the storm clouds, and Eliza has never been more happy to see it.

When they arrive at her 6 month scan, they are close to normal. 

The children see their happiness and breathe freely again, and their home becomes the busy place it once was. They talk and laugh, he stops working as much and spends more time with her and the children. She begins to love him again, slowly but surely. They work at their relationship, try to become better at vocalising their needs. The wounds heal over, it again feels like him and her against the world.

As they turn the corner into the waiting room, hands locked together tightly, nothing feels like it could go wrong again. They made it through the storm, rebuilding what they once had. 

But there’s one thing they forgot about life.

It’s not always kind.

Eliza Hamilton learns this for the second time, when she sees Maria Renyolds with a baby. 

A baby with her husbands eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry :(

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> This will probably stay as a one shot, sorry :(


End file.
